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One of the most anticipated events at the Met is their annual Roof Garden Commission, an art series in which the New York institution chooses one artist to use the coveted space as their canvas.
This year’s commission, which was just unveiled today, sends a playful yet extremely poignant and timely message about children who find themselves in war zones. The exhibition, titled Abetare, is on view through October 27; it's included with general admission.
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The artist, Petrit Halilaj, was born in war-torn Kosovo in 1986 and had to flee his home during the Yugoslav Wars in 1998. He lived with his family in a refugee camp in Serbia for a year, where he drew pictures of war scenes that he had witnessed back home. The sculptures on the roof were inspired by doodles Halilaj found at the school he attended in Runk, Kosovo before it was demolished in 2010.
“That school was one of the very few architectural landmarks that stood after the war, and I didn’t understand why they were tearing it down,” Halilaj says. He says when he went to the school just before it was demolished, he snuck in with a bunch of kids and saw desks covered with scribbles and sketches that dated all the way back from the 1970s. “I was really surprised to see (sketches) of the liberation army and NATO next to (sketches) of Messi, Ronaldo, Michael Jackson, Coca Cola and…hearts, trees and birds.” Inspired by those drawings, he visited other schools across former Yugoslavian countries and gathered more sketches he would end up using for his Met installation.
One of the first sculptures that will likely grab your attention as soon as you arrive at the roof is one of a giant smiling spider, “Abetare.” The other sculpture that commands the space towers overhead in the shape of a house, which has attached to it a star, other tiny houses and the phrase “return to kukes,” a reference to the refugee camp where Halilaj and his family were displaced.
The sculptures are a feat of engineering: Although they’re made of stainless steel and bronze and have to withstand hurricane-force winds, they look quite fragile and like they were sketched on a whim, exactly as a child’s drawing might appear.
Although it’s easy to be mesmerized by the large entangled sculptures that take center stage, the serendipity in the exhibit lies in the abundant tiny details scattered throughout the roof. It was both heartbreaking and moving to see the innocence in the children's perspectives, but what I found most impactful was how it illuminated our deep interconnectedness. Some of the sketches might look familiar to many children across the world, including the Universal ‘S’ sign many of us probably had all over our notebooks in middle school. The exhibit also shows how even in the midst of wars organized by adults, children remain playful and curious beings: There’s one particularly cheeky corner where the word “tiddies” is written in chicken scratch.
When you’re there, make sure to cover every corner of the roof and don’t forget to look up as well. You might find some more playful characters dangling overhead.
Even if the art is inspired by hardship, the overarching feeling of the exhibit is hope, something that kids seem to have even in the most bleak of circumstances. “We are going through very dark times but one of the things I was excited to see here is to bring scribbles and drawings from kids from different countries together,” Halilaj says. “I dedicate this to all those kids and the brighter future they always know how to bring out.”
